I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
read, but thought I'd ask anyway.

Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?

>>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<

On 2022 Jan 21, jetjock wrote
(in article<rlrlugpuf3huk095g7873am0pmoaculkmp@4ax.com>):

> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
> read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>
> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
> WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?
>
> > > > > > > > > > > jetjock<<<<<<<<<<

You’re gonna have to back everything up, reformat, reinstall, and restore.
Note that if you get an external drive and drop an image or a full clone of
your internal drive onto it, and then use something like LapLink’s PC Mover
to do the restore, life will be easier. It’ll still be annoying, just not
as annoying.

On 21/01/2022 19:24, jetjock wrote:
>
> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
> read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>
> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
> WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?

Certainly not officially, and possibly, perhaps probably, not in
practice. However, it wasn't supposed to be possible to downgrade W7
Ultimate to Home Premium either, but I managed to do it as follows -
perhaps something similar could work for you:

On 15/01/2019 23:05, Java Jive wrote:
>
> Just now I'm trying to downgrade a W7 build from Ultimate to Home
Premium without wasting the two months of installation, configuration,
customisation, and testing that it took to make the original Ultimate
build. If Windows was truly modular and Object-Orientated, it would be
a simple thing to do, but Windows is such a steaming monolithic pile of
sphagettified shit that it seems almost impossible to do this.

[A day or two later]

Astonishingly, I seem to have managed it. Here's how - note that the
below assumes that the intended target Home Premium system has already
been successfully booted using the Ultimate build, but, most probably,
the latter has not been activated, as it was copied from another
activated PC:

0) Optionally, but advisedly, you will probably want to backup the
target Ultimate system disk/partition - which is assumed to be
working, except for activation, on the intended target PC - using an
imaging program of your choice. FWIW, I use Ghost.

1) On a spare HD in the intended target PC, create a vanilla Home
Premium build with all devices recognised and all updates installed (the
latter assumes that the original Ultimate build was fully updated, which
it was).

2) Mount both the target Ultimate disk (U) and the new Home Premium
(H) disk as extra disks in another working windows system, which for
preference should NOT be the intended target system. To help avoid
confusion, you could give them drive letters U: and H: respectively.

3) If you haven't already on the individual builds when creating
them, you will probably need to select each in turn and give
'Administrators' ownership throughout each of the two Windows directory
heirarchies ...
H:\Windows
U:\Windows
.... which you can do from Explorer by <rt-clicking> each in turn, and
choosing Properties, Security, Advanced, Owner, Edit. Probably also
you will have to grant Administrators Full access throughout both
heirarchies by running a command prompt as administrator and giving the
commands ...
icacls H:\Windows\*.* /C /Q /L /T /grant Administrators:F
icacls U:\Windows\*.* /C /Q /L /T /grant Administrators:F

4) Temporarily rename H:\Windows\System32\config to, say,
'configHP'.

5) Going back to the administrator command prompt, copy HP over U by
giving the command ...
xcopy /c /y /b /h /r /e /x H:\Windows\*.* U:\Windows\*.*

6) Rename H:\Windows\System32\configHP back to 'config'.

7) On the computer acting as host for these steps, run Regedit.

8) Still in Regedit, select 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE', choose File, Load
hive, and load ...
U:\Windows\System32\configHP\SOFTWARE
(note 'configHP', *not* 'config')
.... giving a suitable key name for the hive, say, 'U2HP'.

9) Navigate to both ...
HKLM\U2HP\Microsoft\Windows
HKLM\U2HP\Microsoft\WindowsNT
.... and export each key, giving them suitable filenames, say Windows.reg
and WindowsNT.reg, saving them most conveniently in
U:\Windows\System32\configHP

10) Select HKLM\U2HP and choose File, Unload hive.

11) Repeat step 8 to load the corresponding Ultimate hive from:
U:\Windows\System32\config\SOFTWARE
(it really is 'config' this time)
.... being sure to give *exactly* the same key name as above, 'U2HP'

12) Import the two registry files saved above in step 7.

13) Repeat step 10 to unload the hive.

14) Delete or rename the file:
U:\Windows\Ultimate.xml

15) Delete or rename the directory:
U:\Windows\System32\spp\tokens\skus\Security-SPP-Component-SKU-Ultimate

16) If you are confident of having done everything coreectly, now, or
else at some time in the future, delete the directory:
U:\Windows\System32\configHP

17) Eject the two disks from the temporary host system. and load the
Ultimate disk back in its intended target PC.

18) Boot the target PC, which may take longer than usual, as Windows
tries to work out what happened. Quite likely it will restrict
usability and prompt you for authentication as soon as you log on, so
authenticate using your Home Premium disk key, and then restart to
regain full functionality.

If things still don't appear to be working properly, a possible reason
is that you used the target PC instead of another to do the registry
hive changes above, and you now have a system drive letter that is not
C:, to fix this ...

i) Go to the registry key ...
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

ii) Rename the value for "\DosDevices\C:" to "\DosDevices\Z:"
or similar.

iii) Rename the value for "\DosDevices\X:" to "\DosDevices\C:"
where X: is the drive letter that is currently your system drive.

iv) Reboot.

.... and hopefully normality will now be restored.

The target build authenticated against that PC's HP key, and has worked
almost flawlessly ever since. 'Almost', because the only thing that
sometimes happens is that security updates fail, and if I then make
Windows Update check for outstanding updates, it invariable says there
are none, and usually the next day's security update then works fine. I
have no real idea as to what the explanation for that is, unless perhaps
Windows Update attempted to apply an Ultimate version of an update to
this now Home Premium machine, or it applied an appropriate HP update
and some legacy Ultimate file got in the way.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:24:26 -0600, jetjock <jetjock@unkown.com>
wrote:

> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
>read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>
> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
>WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?

No. The same is true for all versions of Windows. There is no way to
do such an upgrade. You can not change any version of Windows from
32-bit to 64-bit or vice-versa. The only way to get there is by doing
a clean installation, and a clean installation means reinstalling all
the programs.

On 1/21/2022 4:27 PM, Ken Blake wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:24:26 -0600, jetjock <jetjock@unkown.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
>> read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>>
>> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
>> WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?
>
>
>
> No. The same is true for all versions of Windows. There is no way to
> do such an upgrade. You can not change any version of Windows from
> 32-bit to 64-bit or vice-versa. The only way to get there is by doing
> a clean installation, and a clean installation means reinstalling all
> the programs.
>

If we looked at a 64-bit OS and the "Program Files" contents,
then moved that folder to a 32-bit OS, none of those programs
will run, because they're PE32+. (I'm ignoring 16-bit executables
in the following table, because I don't know their "name"...)

64-bit OS: Runs PE32+ as well as PE32 EXE files
32-bit OS: Runs PE32 EXE files

So right away, that's a significant issue. Clean installing
and then doing all the program installers, amounts to a lot
of the same activities.

Even the Preferences in a program, may have some version-specific
characteristics. I would expect maybe some mail boxes to move
from one setup to another. I got lucky on one client here
when the Typing Machine broke -- it had an Import option
that saved me a *ton* of work :-) I didn't even think to check
for that, when selecting the software.

Paul

On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:24:26 -0600, jetjock wrote:
>
> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
> read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>
> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
> WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?

Why do you want to do this? What problem are you trying to solve.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 at 18:21:11, Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm>
wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
>On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:24:26 -0600, jetjock wrote:
>>
>> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
>> read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>>
>> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
>> WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?
>
>Why do you want to do this? What problem are you trying to solve.
>
>"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
>
>
>
I'd be interested to hear, too. The only reason _I_ can think of (unless
there is a need to use some advanced software only available in 64-bit)
is to enable use of more RAM than (nearly) 4G - and that only because of
the increasing sloppiness/laziness of website programmers (nothing I do
other than having multiple browser tabs open goes anywhere near needing
all of my 3G).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

As individuals, politicians are usually quite charming, so it is quite hard to
dislike them, but in most cases, it is worth making the effort.
- Mark Williams (UMRA), 2013-4-26

On 21/01/2022 19:24, jetjock wrote:
> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
> read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>
> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
> WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?
>
> >>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<

Even if you could, is it desirable?

I recently upgraded an old laptop from W7-Pro32 to W7-Pro64 and took the
opportunity to get rid of all the crap which had accumulated over many
years - just installing the programs I really needed and not all the
redundant ones.

It's given it a new lease of life. It might not be as sprightly as newer
systems, but at least it doesn't grind to a halt at the slightest
provocation, like it used to. This is probably due to a combination of
being able to access all 4GB of memory rather than 3, and not
automatically loading all sorts of crap I had forgotten about at boot time.

You will, of course, need to back up your data and restore it to the new
system. That wasn't an issue for me because all of my data is in a
separate partition (F: drive) and not on the system disk.

If you upgrade to the same version of Windows - Home to Home, Pro to
Pro, etc - you can legitimately re-use the original license key when you
activate the new system.
--
Cheers,
Roger

On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 21:16:28 +0000, Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid>
wrote:

>On 21/01/2022 19:24, jetjock wrote:
>>
>> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
>> read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>>
>> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
>> WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?
>
>Certainly not officially, and possibly, perhaps probably, not in
>practice. However, it wasn't supposed to be possible to downgrade W7
>Ultimate to Home Premium either, but I managed to do it as follows -
>perhaps something similar could work for you:
>
>On 15/01/2019 23:05, Java Jive wrote:
> >
> > Just now I'm trying to downgrade a W7 build from Ultimate to Home
>Premium without wasting the two months of installation, configuration,
>customisation, and testing that it took to make the original Ultimate
>build. If Windows was truly modular and Object-Orientated, it would be
>a simple thing to do, but Windows is such a steaming monolithic pile of
>sphagettified shit that it seems almost impossible to do this.
>
>[A day or two later]
>
>Astonishingly, I seem to have managed it. Here's how - note that the
>below assumes that the intended target Home Premium system has already
>been successfully booted using the Ultimate build, but, most probably,
>the latter has not been activated, as it was copied from another
>activated PC:
>
>0) Optionally, but advisedly, you will probably want to backup the
>target Ultimate system disk/partition - which is assumed to be
>working, except for activation, on the intended target PC - using an
>imaging program of your choice. FWIW, I use Ghost.
>
>1) On a spare HD in the intended target PC, create a vanilla Home
>Premium build with all devices recognised and all updates installed (the
>latter assumes that the original Ultimate build was fully updated, which
>it was).
>
>2) Mount both the target Ultimate disk (U) and the new Home Premium
>(H) disk as extra disks in another working windows system, which for
>preference should NOT be the intended target system. To help avoid
>confusion, you could give them drive letters U: and H: respectively.
>
>3) If you haven't already on the individual builds when creating
>them, you will probably need to select each in turn and give
>'Administrators' ownership throughout each of the two Windows directory
>heirarchies ...
> H:\Windows
> U:\Windows
>... which you can do from Explorer by <rt-clicking> each in turn, and
>choosing Properties, Security, Advanced, Owner, Edit. Probably also
>you will have to grant Administrators Full access throughout both
>heirarchies by running a command prompt as administrator and giving the
>commands ...
> icacls H:\Windows\*.* /C /Q /L /T /grant Administrators:F
> icacls U:\Windows\*.* /C /Q /L /T /grant Administrators:F
>
>4) Temporarily rename H:\Windows\System32\config to, say,
>'configHP'.
>
>5) Going back to the administrator command prompt, copy HP over U by
>giving the command ...
> xcopy /c /y /b /h /r /e /x H:\Windows\*.* U:\Windows\*.*
>
>6) Rename H:\Windows\System32\configHP back to 'config'.
>
>7) On the computer acting as host for these steps, run Regedit.
>
>8) Still in Regedit, select 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE', choose File, Load
>hive, and load ...
> U:\Windows\System32\configHP\SOFTWARE
> (note 'configHP', *not* 'config')
>... giving a suitable key name for the hive, say, 'U2HP'.
>
>9) Navigate to both ...
> HKLM\U2HP\Microsoft\Windows
> HKLM\U2HP\Microsoft\WindowsNT
>... and export each key, giving them suitable filenames, say Windows.reg
>and WindowsNT.reg, saving them most conveniently in
> U:\Windows\System32\configHP
>
>10) Select HKLM\U2HP and choose File, Unload hive.
>
>11) Repeat step 8 to load the corresponding Ultimate hive from:
> U:\Windows\System32\config\SOFTWARE
> (it really is 'config' this time)
>... being sure to give *exactly* the same key name as above, 'U2HP'
>
>12) Import the two registry files saved above in step 7.
>
>13) Repeat step 10 to unload the hive.
>
>14) Delete or rename the file:
> U:\Windows\Ultimate.xml
>
>15) Delete or rename the directory:
> U:\Windows\System32\spp\tokens\skus\Security-SPP-Component-SKU-Ultimate
>
>16) If you are confident of having done everything coreectly, now, or
>else at some time in the future, delete the directory:
> U:\Windows\System32\configHP
>
>17) Eject the two disks from the temporary host system. and load the
>Ultimate disk back in its intended target PC.
>
>18) Boot the target PC, which may take longer than usual, as Windows
>tries to work out what happened. Quite likely it will restrict
>usability and prompt you for authentication as soon as you log on, so
>authenticate using your Home Premium disk key, and then restart to
>regain full functionality.
>
>If things still don't appear to be working properly, a possible reason
>is that you used the target PC instead of another to do the registry
>hive changes above, and you now have a system drive letter that is not
>C:, to fix this ...
>
>i) Go to the registry key ...
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
>
>ii) Rename the value for "\DosDevices\C:" to "\DosDevices\Z:"
>or similar.
>
>iii) Rename the value for "\DosDevices\X:" to "\DosDevices\C:"
>where X: is the drive letter that is currently your system drive.
>
>iv) Reboot.
>
>... and hopefully normality will now be restored.
>
>The target build authenticated against that PC's HP key, and has worked
>almost flawlessly ever since. 'Almost', because the only thing that
>sometimes happens is that security updates fail, and if I then make
>Windows Update check for outstanding updates, it invariable says there
>are none, and usually the next day's security update then works fine. I
>have no real idea as to what the explanation for that is, unless perhaps
>Windows Update attempted to apply an Ultimate version of an update to
>this now Home Premium machine, or it applied an appropriate HP update
>and some legacy Ultimate file got in the way.

WOW! Are you sure it wouldn't have been easier to just start from
scratch? ;-) Thanks for taking the time to post all this. Much
appreciated.

>>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<

On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 18:21:11 -0800, Stan Brown
<the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:

>On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:24:26 -0600, jetjock wrote:
>>
>> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
>> read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>>
>> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
>> WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?
>
>Why do you want to do this? What problem are you trying to solve.
>
>"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I will reply to this post as it was the shortest.

The reason for trying to upgrade was getting Roboform to activate.
The error I was getting appeared to be saying that the installed
program would not activate because it was a 64 bit program. I later
discovered that was not the reason...just operator error! I have been
able to bypass the 4GB memory use limit of x86, thanks to a hack I
found (available on request) that works great, and even I could
follow.

Thanks to all who responded and confirmed my suspicions. Thanks
also to Java Jive for taking the time to post a possible way of doing
it. All is now good!

>>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<

On 22/01/2022 16:38, jetjock wrote:
>
> WOW! Are you sure it wouldn't have been easier to just start from
> scratch? ;-) Thanks for taking the time to post all this. Much
> appreciated.

No, because I'd spent several months, on & off, installing the software,
customising the look 'n' feel, and generally getting as close as I could
to how I wanted it to be.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 1/22/2022 3:54, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 at 18:21:11, Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm>
> wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
>> On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:24:26 -0600, jetjock wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
>>> read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>>>
>>> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
>>> WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?
>>
>> Why do you want to do this? What problem are you trying to solve.
>>
>> "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
>>
> I'd be interested to hear, too. The only reason _I_ can think of (unless
> there is a need to use some advanced software only available in 64-bit)
> is to enable use of more RAM than (nearly) 4G - and that only because of
> the increasing sloppiness/laziness of website programmers (nothing I do
> other than having multiple browser tabs open goes anywhere near needing
> all of my 3G).

That would be the only reason that I'd consider switching to 64 bit. I
have 32 bit W7, and I installed it when I built my system in 2015
because of a few legacy 16 bit programs. I very rarely use them,
probably wasn't worth it. I have 4GB of RAM, and it works as is, but
the browser can sometimes come close to eating a lot of it.

On 1/22/2022 9:09 PM, Michael Trew wrote:
> On 1/22/2022 3:54, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>> On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 at 18:21:11, Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm>
>> wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
>>> On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:24:26 -0600, jetjock wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
>>>> read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>>>>
>>>> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
>>>> WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?
>>>
>>> Why do you want to do this? What problem are you trying to solve.
>>>
>>> "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
>>>
>> I'd be interested to hear, too. The only reason _I_ can think of (unless
>> there is a need to use some advanced software only available in 64-bit)
>> is to enable use of more RAM than (nearly) 4G - and that only because of
>> the increasing sloppiness/laziness of website programmers (nothing I do
>> other than having multiple browser tabs open goes anywhere near needing
>> all of my 3G).
>
> That would be the only reason that I'd consider switching to 64 bit.  I have 32 bit W7, and I installed it when I built my system in 2015 because of a few legacy 16 bit programs.  I very rarely use them, probably wasn't worth it.  I have 4GB of RAM, and it works as is, but the browser can sometimes come close to eating a lot of it.

It's the memory license that prevents more of the RAM from being used.

PAE would allow 64GB of RAM to be used by a 32-bit OS. This relies,
from a hardware feature perspective, on the FSB (front side bus) have
36-bit addressing. Virtual 32-bit addresses map into a 36-bit physical
address space. One process may only allocate 1.8GB, but 32 processes
could use closer to the entire 64GB PAE space. (As defined by the
Pentium III design, when PAE first came out.)

The consequences of this, if enabled, would mean five Firefox processes
could allocate up to 1.8GB or so each, for a total of 9GB of memory
allocation. If the user artificially intervened and created more
"Content" processes, handling more tabs, this would allow Firefox
in a PAE environment to use more RAM than that (assuming more RAM
was installed).

On some AMD processors, things have moved on since the Pentium III
36-bit era, and with 40-bit or 43-bit addressing, who knows what
the boundaries of PAE are today.

Someone hacked Vista 32-bit and got the machine reporting 8GB free,
and this was just a memory license hack. The success of this depends on
PCI cards and their drivers, handling the situation in a benign way, and
not breaking something.

Paul

Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:
> On 22/01/2022 16:38, jetjock wrote:
> >
> > WOW! Are you sure it wouldn't have been easier to just start from
> > scratch? ;-) Thanks for taking the time to post all this. Much
> > appreciated.

> No, because I'd spent several months, on & off, installing the software,
> customising the look 'n' feel, and generally getting as close as I could
> to how I wanted it to be.

I hope you make frequent back up of your C: drive so you can easily restore if anything bad happens!
--
Slammy CATurday outside the warm and windy nest with many humans working outside, commmuting, etc.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

On 23/01/2022 07:57, Ant wrote:
> Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:
>> On 22/01/2022 16:38, jetjock wrote:
>>>
>>> WOW! Are you sure it wouldn't have been easier to just start from
>>> scratch? ;-) Thanks for taking the time to post all this. Much
>>> appreciated.
>
>> No, because I'd spent several months, on & off, installing the software,
>> customising the look 'n' feel, and generally getting as close as I could
>> to how I wanted it to be.
>
> I hope you make frequent back up of your C: drive so you can easily restore if anything bad happens!

Of course, I've already mentioned upthread that I use Ghost. I keep a
list of changes such as software updates, and whenever I think it's
getting too long, I take a Ghost image of C:. It takes a little over an
hour to do, and can be restored in less time. The data drive is backed
up nightly using DeltaCopy.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On Sat, 22 Jan 2022 at 21:09:37, Michael Trew <michael.trew@att.net>
wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
>On 1/22/2022 3:54, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>> On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 at 18:21:11, Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm>
>> wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
[]
>>> Why do you want to do this? What problem are you trying to solve.
>>>
>>> "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
>>>
>> I'd be interested to hear, too. The only reason _I_ can think of (unless
>> there is a need to use some advanced software only available in 64-bit)
>> is to enable use of more RAM than (nearly) 4G - and that only because of
>> the increasing sloppiness/laziness of website programmers (nothing I do
>> other than having multiple browser tabs open goes anywhere near needing
>> all of my 3G).
>
>That would be the only reason that I'd consider switching to 64 bit. I
>have 32 bit W7, and I installed it when I built my system in 2015
>because of a few legacy 16 bit programs. I very rarely use them,
>probably wasn't worth it. I have 4GB of RAM, and it works as is, but
>the browser can sometimes come close to eating a lot of it.

I have an add-on for Chrome called "The Great Suspender Original" (the
"Original" matters) that stops tabs other than the current one doing
anything after a time I can set (I have it set to one hour at the
moment); this has given me back quite a bit of performance. There are
probably other similar, for Chrome and other browsers. (My ancient
Firefox - 27.0.1 - doesn't seem to suffer it much, even with lots of
tabs open, probably because it just can't _run_ the script on many
pages. [It does sometimes experience RAM runaway - restarting it seems
to clear that - but that's not normally noticeable.])

Before getting TGSO working again (I'd had TGS a few years ago, but
Google had blocked it because of apparent spying), I mainly noticed the
problem as constant disc access. Using Resource Monitor (it's a button
in the Performance tab of Task Manager), I was able to see which
processes were the disc usage culprits, and Chrome's own Task Manager
(shift-esc from within Chrome) let me stop them (stopping them doesn't
close the tab), but that's tedious - having other than the active tab
suspended automatically after a settable time is a lot easier.
(Switching to a suspended tab then clicking anywhere in it reloads it.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day. (A.A. Milne)

On Sat, 22 Jan 2022 at 10:54:50, jetjock <jetjock@unkown.com> wrote (my
responses usually follow points raised):
[]
> The reason for trying to upgrade was getting Roboform to activate.
>The error I was getting appeared to be saying that the installed
>program would not activate because it was a 64 bit program. I later
>discovered that was not the reason...just operator error! I have been
>able to bypass the 4GB memory use limit of x86, thanks to a hack I
>found (available on request) that works great, and even I could
>follow.

Requesting (-:. [Not that I have other than the 3G in this laptop ATM,
but would allow me to move to a machine with more (than 4G) and still
remain 32 bit if I should wish. (Are there any catches to the hack?)]
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

And indeed, Dutch isn't a lanuguage, it's a throat disease.
- Frank Slootweg in 3 Windows newsgroups, 2019-7-24

On Sat, 22 Jan 2022 21:09:37 -0500, Michael Trew
<michael.trew@att.net> wrote:

>On 1/22/2022 3:54, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>> On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 at 18:21:11, Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm>
>> wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
>>> On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:24:26 -0600, jetjock wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
>>>> read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>>>>
>>>> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
>>>> WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?
>>>
>>> Why do you want to do this? What problem are you trying to solve.
>>>
>>> "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
>>>
>> I'd be interested to hear, too. The only reason _I_ can think of (unless
>> there is a need to use some advanced software only available in 64-bit)
>> is to enable use of more RAM than (nearly) 4G - and that only because of
>> the increasing sloppiness/laziness of website programmers (nothing I do
>> other than having multiple browser tabs open goes anywhere near needing
>> all of my 3G).
>
>That would be the only reason that I'd consider switching to 64 bit. I
>have 32 bit W7, and I installed it when I built my system in 2015
>because of a few legacy 16 bit programs. I very rarely use them,
>probably wasn't worth it. I have 4GB of RAM, and it works as is, but
>the browser can sometimes come close to eating a lot of it.

I finally decided to upgrade Firefox to the latest version. That's
when I discovered that the 6GB of RAM installed on wife's computer
weren't being used. She kept getting "out of memory" warnings. Was
going to switch to x64 then, until I found the hack for bypassing the
4GB limit.

>>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<

On 1/23/2022 11:48 AM, jetjock wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Jan 2022 21:09:37 -0500, Michael Trew
> <michael.trew@att.net> wrote:
>
>> On 1/22/2022 3:54, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>>> On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 at 18:21:11, Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm>
>>> wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
>>>> On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:24:26 -0600, jetjock wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
>>>>> read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
>>>>> WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?
>>>>
>>>> Why do you want to do this? What problem are you trying to solve.
>>>>
>>>> "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
>>>>
>>> I'd be interested to hear, too. The only reason _I_ can think of (unless
>>> there is a need to use some advanced software only available in 64-bit)
>>> is to enable use of more RAM than (nearly) 4G - and that only because of
>>> the increasing sloppiness/laziness of website programmers (nothing I do
>>> other than having multiple browser tabs open goes anywhere near needing
>>> all of my 3G).
>>
>> That would be the only reason that I'd consider switching to 64 bit. I
>> have 32 bit W7, and I installed it when I built my system in 2015
>> because of a few legacy 16 bit programs. I very rarely use them,
>> probably wasn't worth it. I have 4GB of RAM, and it works as is, but
>> the browser can sometimes come close to eating a lot of it.
>
> I finally decided to upgrade Firefox to the latest version. That's
> when I discovered that the 6GB of RAM installed on wife's computer
> weren't being used. She kept getting "out of memory" warnings. Was
> going to switch to x64 then, until I found the hack for bypassing the
> 4GB limit.

But you know how that works. It is going to use PAE when managing 6GB of
memory with a 32 bit OS. Yes, you can use all 6GB. But no, you cannot
start Photoshop 32-bit and have it use all 6GB for the Photoshop session.
It would still be limited to 1.8GB or so.

What you can do with 6GB of RAM, is run three programs of 1.8GB each.

In the case of Firefox Quantum, where multiple processes are seen
running in Windows, you can get the benefit of the entire 6GB of RAM.
But that only happens, when you have a lot of tabs open, and enough
tabs are open to use multiple "Content" processes (1.8GB max each).

On older computers, PAE only works, if the FSB address bus is a minimum
of 36 bits wide. Intel ruined a few hardware designs after Pentium III,
by using a 32 bit address bus, and this prevents the effective usage
of PAE. But more chipsets/memory management units and so on, have
36+ bits, than the "failure cases". Only a few designs were dismal
failures and that was older hardware (maybe 2005 to 2007 vintage or so).
And the thing is, Intel removing the address bits, I'm pretty sure the
connections on the socket ended up "NC" and no money was saved by ruining
it. When I think about issues like this, I keep seeing Gelsinger
in his ugly Christmas sweater.

The weird thing about all of this, is when PAE was invented for
Pentium III, on the day that was delivered, there was almost no
hope of using it, by desktop users. It was released as a tease,
because you couldn't stuff enough DIMMs in the machine to get
the mileage from it. And later it was "cut off at the pass" by
Microsoft and their memory license for 32-bit OSes.

Paul

On 1/23/2022 11:04 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Jan 2022 at 10:54:50, jetjock <jetjock@unkown.com> wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
> []
>>  The reason for trying to upgrade was getting Roboform to activate.
>> The error I was getting appeared to be saying that the installed
>> program would not activate because it was a 64 bit program.  I later
>> discovered that was not the reason...just operator error!  I have been
>> able to bypass the 4GB memory use limit of x86, thanks to a hack I
>> found (available on request) that works great, and even I could
>> follow.
>
> Requesting (-:. [Not that I have other than the 3G in this laptop ATM, but would allow me to move to a machine with more (than 4G) and still remain 32 bit if I should wish. (Are there any catches to the hack?)]
> []

Sure, "bounce buffers and 64-bit double-pumped PCI bus addressing" :-)

But that topic was just brought up by Microsoft, to scare people :-)

Like a boogie man under the bed.

Stick your head down over the side of the bed, and look underneath first...

Paul

On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 12:04:49, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote (my
responses usually follow points raised):
>On 1/23/2022 11:48 AM, jetjock wrote:
[]
>> going to switch to x64 then, until I found the hack for bypassing the
>> 4GB limit.
>
>But you know how that works. It is going to use PAE when managing 6GB of
>memory with a 32 bit OS. Yes, you can use all 6GB. But no, you cannot
>start Photoshop 32-bit and have it use all 6GB for the Photoshop session.
>It would still be limited to 1.8GB or so.

Ah, so you can use more than 4G, but no _individual_ 32-bit prog. can.
Ah well. (Would probably still be worth doing: if Chrome could have 1.8G
to itself, that'd still release more than enough for the rest of the PC
to run well. Though by the time I get round to changing PC, even 1.8G
won't be enough for more than a few tabs.)
>
>What you can do with 6GB of RAM, is run three programs of 1.8GB each.
[]
>On older computers, PAE only works, if the FSB address bus is a minimum
>of 36 bits wide. Intel ruined a few hardware designs after Pentium III,
>by using a 32 bit address bus, and this prevents the effective usage
>of PAE. But more chipsets/memory management units and so on, have
[]
So, were I to consider looking into this, is there an easy way to tell
if a given PC is suitable? Presumably, if it's advertised as having more
than 4G (presumably with a 64-bit OS), it's OK for 32-bit with PAE - or
is that not so?
>
>The weird thing about all of this, is when PAE was invented for
>Pentium III, on the day that was delivered, there was almost no
>hope of using it, by desktop users. It was released as a tease,
>because you couldn't stuff enough DIMMs in the machine to get

(-:

>the mileage from it. And later it was "cut off at the pass" by
>Microsoft and their memory license for 32-bit OSes.

Was it a deliberate limit on MS's part, for no reason other than to be
nasty, then? I'd assumed it was a hardware thing.
>
> Paul
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I
have one. -Cato the Elder, statesman, soldier, and writer (234-149 BCE)

On 1/23/2022 1:32 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 12:04:49, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
>
>> the mileage from it. And later it was "cut off at the pass" by
>> Microsoft and their memory license for 32-bit OSes.
>
> Was it a deliberate limit on MS's part, for no reason other than to
> be nasty, then? I'd assumed it was a hardware thing.

There was an "assumption" there would be driver trouble, but
no one was interested enough to do a survey of the hardware
and find out. Russinovich is the one who proposed there wasn't
really a problem. That the hardware had mostly been designed
so that it would not tip over if PAE was used in 32-bit OSes.

The hack I've mentioned before, where the software guy
bypasses the memory license on Vista and gets "8GB Free"
in Task Manager, that was probably done without too much
expectation it would crash and burn.

Bounce buffers, allow hardware buffers to be placed below 4GB
addresses, then you can copy the buffer contents to high
memory, if memory buffers are allocated for the usage of drivers.
That's one way to fix a shortage of hardware features. With bounce
buffers, you can make it look like a PCI card is ready for "large
memory" machines.

Some PCI cards have 64-bit addressing and they can emit two PCI address
cycles. This allows them to have buffer rings above 4GB, because
they can make addresses anywhere you could want them.

The "last considered opinion" at the time, was that this
would probably have worked. And not been the guaranteed
shit-show proposed earlier as a result.

The Microsoft policy is "safe", but it should have been
equipped with a registry setting to "let'er rip". They should
have made it so you could test it.

Paul

On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 16:04:07 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
<G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

>On Sat, 22 Jan 2022 at 10:54:50, jetjock <jetjock@unkown.com> wrote (my
>responses usually follow points raised):
>[]
>> The reason for trying to upgrade was getting Roboform to activate.
>>The error I was getting appeared to be saying that the installed
>>program would not activate because it was a 64 bit program. I later
>>discovered that was not the reason...just operator error! I have been
>>able to bypass the 4GB memory use limit of x86, thanks to a hack I
>>found (available on request) that works great, and even I could
>>follow.
>
>Requesting (-:. [Not that I have other than the 3G in this laptop ATM,
>but would allow me to move to a machine with more (than 4G) and still
>remain 32 bit if I should wish. (Are there any catches to the hack?)]
>[]

I'll scan it later and post a Sendspace link. There were a couple of
"doomsayers" where I found it, but it's been running on my wife's
computer for over a month with no problems.

>>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<

On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 12:04:49 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid>
wrote:

>On 1/23/2022 11:48 AM, jetjock wrote:
>> On Sat, 22 Jan 2022 21:09:37 -0500, Michael Trew
>> <michael.trew@att.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 1/22/2022 3:54, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 at 18:21:11, Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm>
>>>> wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
>>>>> On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:24:26 -0600, jetjock wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be after all I've
>>>>>> read, but thought I'd ask anyway.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Is there a way that a current install of x86 can be upgraded to x64
>>>>>> WITHOUT having to re-install all the programs?
>>>>>
>>>>> Why do you want to do this? What problem are you trying to solve.
>>>>>
>>>>> "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
>>>>>
>>>> I'd be interested to hear, too. The only reason _I_ can think of (unless
>>>> there is a need to use some advanced software only available in 64-bit)
>>>> is to enable use of more RAM than (nearly) 4G - and that only because of
>>>> the increasing sloppiness/laziness of website programmers (nothing I do
>>>> other than having multiple browser tabs open goes anywhere near needing
>>>> all of my 3G).
>>>
>>> That would be the only reason that I'd consider switching to 64 bit. I
>>> have 32 bit W7, and I installed it when I built my system in 2015
>>> because of a few legacy 16 bit programs. I very rarely use them,
>>> probably wasn't worth it. I have 4GB of RAM, and it works as is, but
>>> the browser can sometimes come close to eating a lot of it.
>>
>> I finally decided to upgrade Firefox to the latest version. That's
>> when I discovered that the 6GB of RAM installed on wife's computer
>> weren't being used. She kept getting "out of memory" warnings. Was
>> going to switch to x64 then, until I found the hack for bypassing the
>> 4GB limit.
>
>But you know how that works. It is going to use PAE when managing 6GB of
>memory with a 32 bit OS. Yes, you can use all 6GB. But no, you cannot
>start Photoshop 32-bit and have it use all 6GB for the Photoshop session.
>It would still be limited to 1.8GB or so.

Not a problem on wife's machine. She doesn't use it for much more
than browsing and email. I only realized her machine wasn't using all
6GB of memory when I "upgraded?" to FF 95 and she started getting out
of memory warnings with only one tab open. That damn thing (FF 95)
uses 2.9GB just opening it on her machine.
>
>What you can do with 6GB of RAM, is run three programs of 1.8GB each.
>
>In the case of Firefox Quantum, where multiple processes are seen
>running in Windows, you can get the benefit of the entire 6GB of RAM.
>But that only happens, when you have a lot of tabs open, and enough
>tabs are open to use multiple "Content" processes (1.8GB max each).
>
>On older computers, PAE only works, if the FSB address bus is a minimum
>of 36 bits wide. Intel ruined a few hardware designs after Pentium III,
>by using a 32 bit address bus, and this prevents the effective usage
>of PAE. But more chipsets/memory management units and so on, have
>36+ bits, than the "failure cases". Only a few designs were dismal
>failures and that was older hardware (maybe 2005 to 2007 vintage or so).
>And the thing is, Intel removing the address bits, I'm pretty sure the
>connections on the socket ended up "NC" and no money was saved by ruining
>it. When I think about issues like this, I keep seeing Gelsinger
>in his ugly Christmas sweater.
>
>The weird thing about all of this, is when PAE was invented for
>Pentium III, on the day that was delivered, there was almost no
>hope of using it, by desktop users. It was released as a tease,
>because you couldn't stuff enough DIMMs in the machine to get
>the mileage from it. And later it was "cut off at the pass" by
>Microsoft and their memory license for 32-bit OSes.
>
> Paul

>>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<

On Mon, 24 Jan 2022 at 09:42:35, jetjock <jetjock@unkown.com> wrote (my
responses usually follow points raised):
[]
>Not a problem on wife's machine. She doesn't use it for much more
>than browsing and email. I only realized her machine wasn't using all
>6GB of memory when I "upgraded?" to FF 95 and she started getting out
>of memory warnings with only one tab open. That damn thing (FF 95)
>uses 2.9GB just opening it on her machine.
[]
Wow, I've heard of inefficiency, but ... when you say "just opening it",
is that to a blank tab, or a specific "home page" (if so, what URL?)?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

.... unlike other legal systems the common law is permissive. We can do what we
like, unless it is specifically prohibited by law. We are not as rule-bound
and codified as other legal systems. - Helena Kennedy QC (Radio Times 14-20
July 2012).